Self-Evident
by It's Just Apple Pie
Summary: Betty and Kate. McAndrews. Basically, I don't want to write a full blown story with plot, so I'm writing a bunch of responses to the show, add-ons, descriptions. The goal is to get into Kate's head, because damn, that's hard. I will be adding to this, so read and review- and of course, enjoy. K for now, because no one's naked yet. Angst and Spiritual because that's Kate for you.
1. A Proposal

He slipped the ring on her finger, with a hesitance in his eyes and an eagerness in his hands. He hadn't received an answer, just a couple of logical excuses, and the gasp of a 'No' his heart had fluttered at but his head chose to ignore. His favorite but masking smile graced her lips, and a flash of something not so innocent in her eyes.

Then he said the words which paralleled ones she tried every night to forget, "I wanna take care of you, so that you'll never have to worry about anything, ever again," She looked at him, her eyes a beautiful crusade between who she appeared to be and who she was. Wonder and despair clinked swords until she couldn't bear to lie to him with her eyes any longer, and looked down at the modest ring that symbolized her future.

The diamond wasn't her concern. She noticed the loop, a perfect circle. Never ending, never starting- the ring was infinite. Could she be his forever? She wasn't with him in that moment, but faraway. Like at night when she let her mask fall and looked at her self in the mirror searching for what she had become accustomed to hiding. When she allowed herself the bittersweet punishment and redemption of remembering a time when she danced, in the room of what her father would call a deviant freak, but of what she would call a hero, carelessly and happily.

Her soon to be fiance's words only touched her because of their closeness to ones said in another lifetime, heard by a Marion and not a Kate, said by not a man but a woman. Met with rejection and fear where his words were met with acceptance and conformity.

Happiness is subjective, she thought, faith is infinite and never-questioning.


	2. Redemption

"I miss you" the words wanted so badly to escape, but got stuck in my throat, creating a lump.

The silence grew, to a point of unfamiliarity and uncomfortably, and I began to believe even if I had the means to say what I wanted, it wouldn't change a thing.

She was done with me, and I could feel it in my bones- my eyes did not profess confusion or fear, for once. All she could read was solemn understanding, if she felt like reading, and it wouldn't take much effort on her part. What once had the complexity and small print of the Bible now possessed the simplicity and colorful pages of a picture book, with blatantly obvious meaning for anyone looking, attentively or not.

But she wasn't looking. The definite and melancholy burning of her cigarette held the gaze of her eyes, and she didn't seem far away, just indifferent towards and ignorant of me.

"Nothing changes, does it?" Her query was one I often had in transitioning moments, such as this one.

My voice still wasn't working, but I extended my jaw anyway, my lips parting softly in a half oh, words shouted in my head translated and transformed to a mere and dark whisper, saying too much and too little of what I had intended to, "Not until it's too late."

She took a drag of her cigarette, which forced her to lay her gaze on me. It was a thoughtless action, the mechanics of smoking, but once her eyes caught mine I saw the surprise in her eyes. As if she hadn't even noticed I was next to her, as if she had regarded my words as those of her own conscience because surely, she was alone.

"Kate," she uttered, and I thought she was saying my name just to say it, just to feel the meaning between her teeth, just to torture me with the soft and gratifying tone of her voice.

I thought, this isn't temptation; this is redemption.

But she continued, in the next breath, giving me no time to blink, even though my thoughts were traveling like the planes I saw in the pictures, jerky and fast and oh so damn loud.

"You never change, and when I'm with you, I don't either. Most folks think change is a necessary evil because at the end of the day, it's good. I don't agree. Change is compromise, Kate, and when I'm with you, I don't have to. That's what is good for me."

I gasped in surprise, my tongue catching up with my words, "But not even my name is mine, Betty! I've changed so much."

"But somehow, you're exactly the same. You've always been Kate to me, anyway." Betty shook her head in casual opposition, not feeling like explaining herself.

I blushed, losing my words again, but this time she didn't need them. She was looking at my picture book, and she was smiling, in easy understanding and acceptance.


	3. Across The Hall

A single light illuminated the hallway, the one under a neighbors door, but other than that it was completely dark- and surprisingly quiet. She was in her room, and awake; I could tell because of the cigarette smoke rolling under her door. Her door was dark, and I wondered what she could be thinking about in the dark- she always smoked when she needed to think about something. Her door was now closed, more often than not. But what had she said when I first met her? No one locks the doors around here. In her casual drawl, that I've adored from the moment I met her, cigarette in hand of course.

I should have ran, but she was exactly what my father had not allowed me to be. Blonde, short hair, trousers, a cigarette, slumped posture, and an overall carefree attitude that drew me to her like a sinner to a temptation. But that's not how it always felt, not before she could look right through the facade I had spent my whole life perfecting.

She had eyes that sometimes, when she was angry, flashed the faintest of blues. Her eyes were decidedly amber, however, and calmed me at my darkest hours. Perhaps, they could help me now.

Perhaps if I slipped in, quietly enough, innocently enough, it could be like before she saw me for what I was. Before I killed my father, or perhaps it went further back than that; since she saw me preaching with him in the street. Or maybe I'm kidding myself, and she saw me for what I was the second she laid her eyes on me, from under her eye lashes, that first day.

My secrets always seemed so obvious to her, from my scars, to my nervous jumps, to the darkness in my eyes that I tried to cover with a lightness I didn't possess. I was acting, and whenever she figured it out, that became the after. The before was innocent and lovely and I could pretend we were old chums, I could pretend my father wasn't what he was, and most importantly, the lingering glances I sent her way could still be hidden as admiring ones.

Perhaps if I stood in her doorway long enough, she would let me in. She would pat the space next to her, like it was no big deal, and I could be in her bed once more.

Perhaps if I knocked, she'd know it was me, and whisper "Kate" with just the slightest hint of wonder, as a soft question, but mostly with relief.

Perhaps if I stood in the hallway long enough she would sense me, and open her door to usher me in.

The cigarette smoke stopped rolling for a moment, and there was a pang in my chest, as I thought I had lost my opportunity. But there was a flick- from her lighter, and a few moments later, the smoke continued to kiss my bare feet.

I found my self walking toward her door, not knowing what I was going to do, a disturbing vibration in my chest and an obvious apprehension in my shaking hands.

My palms found the solid wood surface of her door first, my forehead next. The door didn't jerk. I closed my eyes, and heard her breathing heavily. My chest pinched again-_ I know that sound._

Teresa.

A painful flashback I tried to store away came crashing to my foreword thoughts. My honest thoughts, in the dead of night.

_You don't know me. Not really._

I'll never know when my fingers, shaking no doubt, slipped to the door knob and swung the door open with more force than necessary.

She wiped her eyes frantically, "Kate?" It came out, not in wonder or relief, but with a deep regret she never allowed me to hear before. "I-I"- She stuttered and it reminded of that time in Tangiers, when she tried to explain her self to me and I called her disgusting.

Another unwanted flashback that pushed it's way in to my fragile honest thoughts- only in the dead of night.

I felt the sting in my own eyes, as I took in her tear stained cheeks.

A friend would have gone to comfort her immediately, but I just stood in the door way, feeling like an intruder.

She wouldn't look at me, and she was still forcefully wiping her eyes, "What are you doing up?" She said it fast, in her normal way, but her throat betrayed that she had been crying for a while, and her voice cracked on the last word.

I suddenly felt the need to defend myself. To defend the before. To defend what I was doing with Ivan. "I know you, Betty," I grimaced as I realized my voice had cracked too, "I know you. I know how you smoke when you're nervous, and when you're thinking, and when you don't want to think," I laughed slightly, almost choking on my voice, wiped my eyes, and continued, "how you try to hide that you feel things too, how you miss Teresa, how you would incriminate your self if they ever came looking for me again, how you worry about Gladys- because she's you're best friend, how when Lorna gives you so much as a nod, you feel like you belong somewhere, how you- how you- you loved me. How you don't wear that green shirt anymore, how you put that picture of me on your dresser mirror, how you never let your self be alone with me, anymore, I know, Betty. And even if it's just for the sake of being honest, in one thing in my life, you better know I know you. Because I do. I do understand. I know you're a good person, and I know the Lord loves you. I know, Betty, and I wish you could see- like before- that it's all a lie- Ivan," my breath caught, "the marriage, the smiling- we- we haven't had- sex, I have prayed that you know that- if just that. It's all a lie. I know you're hiding who you are, just like me, and that's why it's so easy for you to see right through me- I know why you chose the Bombs- so that your blonde hair would fit in. I know how your eyes are slightly blue- and I know what that means. So for the sake of being honest, in one thing, I _know_ you, you're my Betts, and you're all I know. Just _see_ me again, Betty, _see_ me."


End file.
